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Readers may currently take up to six books out on loan for up to four weeks.
How can I renew books?
1 Go to catalogue
2 Log in with your name and your Heythrop Library card number (starting with ‘019…’)
3 Click on x items currently checked out
4 You can then try to ‘renew all’, or select specific books and ‘renew selected’. If you have problems with renewing, please ask for your books to be renewed in person, or by contacting us.
The following cannot be borrowed:·
* Periodicals
* Reference books (with red spine labels on books in our reading room)
* Restricted or fragile items (you will be informed as soon as we have assessed them)
Some items in the Heythrop Library collections are too fragile to leave the library. We cannot guarantee that all books ordered from the off-site store will be in a condition fit for borrowing until they arrive. The librarians will alert readers if fragile books need to be consulted as reference-only materials in the Mount Street reading room. Such decisions may be made at short notice. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes and thank you for your understanding.
Paid-for membership (full)
If you do not qualify for free membership (see below), but have a serious interest in studying theology or philosophy, you can apply for paid-for membership. This costs £60 per year and includes the benefit of borrowing any of our borrowable books (on-site at the London Jesuit Centre, ca. 8,000 books), as well as over 140,000 modern volumes. Please use our full membership application form to apply.
Reference-only membership fees
For just using the reading room at Mount Street, with its ca. 8,000 books, we also offer the following reference-only membership fees: £5 per day, £10 per week, or £30 per month. Please note these reference-only membership fees will need to be paid in cash, in person (and in British Pounds). These reference-only memberships do not entitle the member to borrow any books or request books from the offsite stores (ca. 140,000 volumes). Please use our reference-only form to apply for this reference-only membership.
Free membership
Free membership is available to certain categories of readers including members of the Society of Jesus and other religious, any lay partners working full-time in a Work of the Jesuits in Britain, former Heythrop College faculty staff, priests and seminarians, teachers of religious education, London Jesuit Centre students, current HE & FE students and sixth-form students, and those unwaged. To make initial contact about becoming a member of the Heythrop Library, please get in touch. Please use our full membership application form to apply.
If you are an early-career or mid-career scholar, please see our news item on The Professor Carl Stephen Patrick Hunter scholarships.
There are three ways you can access the majority of the Heythrop Library's collections:
1 You can apply for membership of the Heythrop Library. Membership costs £60 per year and includes the facility to have books delivered to the London Jesuit Centre and to use the library reading room at the London Jesuit Centre as a place to work.
2 If you are a member of any university library in the UK, you can access the Heythrop Library through your university's inter-library loans (or documents) services. They will need to contact Senate House Library's ILL department (link see below).
3 You can join the University of London Senate House Library. Membership costs £210 per year and gives you access to University of London collections including the Heythrop Library (except the materials at the Heythrop Library reading room/Mount Street).
Often the Library is not that busy, and sometimes you might find that you are the only library user. However, we still believe calls should not be taken in the library (on a mobile or a video call on a laptop)– another library user might walk ‘into your phone call’. Calls can betaken in the corridor outside the Library, or if not inconveniencing others in the Cana Room (at the end of the basement corridor).
Heythrop Library is open to anyone with a serious interest in theology or philosophy and the related academic disciplines represented in the collection. We welcome enquiries about using the library’s collections and reading room at the London Jesuit Centre. The next two sections of this FAQ answers most membership questions, or download the most current Reader's Guide (link below).